analog vs. digital. an honest debate

after spending some time in a studio recently i’ve gotten reacquainted with the “big recording dilema”: do you record analog or digital? that may not mean much to some people and to most they would never know the difference if they heard it. here’s a little background for the uninformed.
in the old days, you recorded to a two inch wide strip of magnetic tape. it was big, clunky, expensive, hard to use, and sounded terrific. nowadays, you can still record like that, but there’s other options too. the tape has gotten smaller and an entirely new medium arrived that gave people the ability to record straight to a computer. it was easy to use, took up less space than anything before it, and because computer technology keeps advancing has become one of the cheapest ways to record. the catch here is that computers still aren’t fast enough to record every single tidbit of sound that you’re trying to capture, whereas a tape head makes a physical impression on the tape as your recording. as a result of this, the digital file is missing some information in the sound wave. think of it like this:
the red line being a tape sound wave and the blue line being a digital sound wave. so really, you get kind of an approximation of what you’re trying to record. a very good one, but an approximation none the less.
well, so what? why the deuce would i waste my time writing about something that so few people care about or even think is useful? the truth is i just started thinking about the perfect analogy that all this is for a lot of things in life. for example, there’s the itunes music store. this is a digital music store as opposed to what i guess could now be called an analog music store where you actually get to pick up a cd and have it in your hands. it’s a physical impression as opposed to a digital approximation. a lot of people prefer this “real” interaction, myself included. i mean, that doesn’t stop me from downloading music and not having the real thing, but i prefer the real thing. i think if you were to ask people, almost all would prefer the real thing.
so why, gentlemen (myself included), do we choose a digital approximation of a woman instead of the real thing? why is this so hard for us? i think if you were to ask men what they preferred almost all of them would say they preferred real thing. about a month ago i had to confess to my wife that i was choosing a digital approximation over a physical impression with her. it wasn’t easy, and we’re both in a better place with each other now, but i still feel like i need to get all that off my chest. this is a very big real struggle for almost every man, married or not. when you’re single, you think that as soon as analog becomes a reality for you, digital becomes a thing of the past. when you’re married, you realize that analog is a lot harder to use. there’s reaction between two things that each behave differently as opposed to a singular action. digital was so much easier. sure it’s not as good, but it worked. it’s easy to go back to what’s familiar. it’s easy to not want to work at things to make them the best they could be. we’re all guilty of this and not just when it comes to this issue. i’m doing my best, and with God’s help i won’t compromise on digital convenience.

song for the day: “new round” by beck. i got to hear the newest album because someone else in this coffee shop has it